Word Origin & History

1660s, of persons, "poorly dressed," with -y (2) + shab "a low fellow" (1630s), literally "scab" (now only dialectal in the literal sense, in reference to a disease of sheep), from Old English sceabb (the native form of the Scandinavian word that yielded Modern English scab; also see sh-). Cf. Middle Dutch schabbich, German schäbig "shabby."

Of clothes, furniture, etc., "of mean appearance, no longer new or fresh" from 1680s; meaning "inferior in quality" is from 1805. Figurative sense "contemptibly mean" is from 1670s. Related: Shabbily; shabbiness. Shabby-genteel "run-down but trying to keep up appearances, retaining in present shabbiness traces of former gentility," first recorded 1754. Related: Shabaroon "disreputable person," c.1700.

Example Sentences for shabbier

The one that now stood there was smaller than his own palatial one, and shabbier.

But toward the end of the season the Beans got shabbier than ever.

The rooms were even smaller and shabbier than he had believed possible.

The Khri, was a native, and his robes could not well have been dirtier or shabbier.

He was shabbier than ever, poor soul, and he looked pinched and hungry.

Life at the South was at once grander and shabbier, than in New England.

She was growing thinner and shabbier of soul, and she knew it.

He lost his first job and took an inferior wage with a shabbier firm.

Marie Louise found it far smaller 77 and shabbier than she had imagined.

But in 1799 there were no shabbier Democrats than those of Connecticut.